By Merridy Littell
Engadin, Switzerland, knows how to make an Alaskan skier jealous. Shots from the live stream showed a winter wonderland with several inches of new snow on the castles and pastel apartment buildings overlooking Lake St. Moritz, in sharp contrast to the bare grass and ice rink–like stadiums of Anchorage. The men were the first to ski the point-to-point course that went through the town and its surrounding area.
The new snow, which finished falling right before the start, was apparently of some concern to racer Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. He told FIS, “I mean, holy sh**, how is this going to go? But I am really satisfied and the guys in the waxing trailer have really done a great job today.” It clearly didn’t hold him back any.
The pack was slow to break up today, typical for a men’s World Cup race. At the 6.5-kilometer checkpoint, Klæbo was leading the field. The next twenty athletes were all within four seconds of him, with the twenty after that also close behind. Zanden McMullen and Zak Ketterson were sitting in 27th and 28th, respectively. Walker Hall, Gus Schumacher, and Hunter Wonders were also close together in 45th, 46th, and 47th. Working closely together to hold on to the lead pack, team tactics appeared to be at play here.
American skiers Hall, Schumacher, and Wonders skiing together near the 6.5km mark (photo: screenshot)
Other teams may have also had the same idea. At the 9.5-kilometer mark, spots 4, 5, 6, and 7 were all occupied by Frenchmen. Going into the bonus points at this checkpoint, they worked together to quicken the pace and take four of the top ten slots that received them.
These points may prove useful in the future. France is currently ranked second in the men’s Nations Cup standings (found here), and as of this race is a narrow 91 points ahead of Sweden. These standings are used not only for national pride and bragging rights, but also for the math that determines World Cup start quotas, in every season, and Olympic start quotas, in the 2025/2026 season.
As another opportunity for bonus points presented itself at the 15.8-kilometer checkpoint, there were *only* four Norwegians in the top ten. Four kilometers later, this number had grown to six, with four of them in the top five.
Over the final of three, 3.7-kilometer laps near the finish the top Norwegian skiers began fighting their way to the front, apparently collaborating to push the pace. “The last two laps were really hard,” said Klæbo in comments to FIS. “It was really fun actually, and cool to do something else.”
As they neared the finish, three Norwegians (with Klæbo second) emerged from the rest of the pack, apparently capitalizing on their teammates’ efforts to increase the speed. In a flawlessly executed slipstream effect, Klæbo swung around Iver Tildheim Andersen on the final downhill. With a powerful V2 up the false flat into the finish, he led five of his teammates to a Norwegian sweep of the top six spots, led by Andersen in second and Didrik Tønseth in third. Spots seven through nine were taken by Frenchmen, while Austrian Mika Vermeulen rounded out the top ten.
Zak Ketterson led the Americans in 30th, followed closely behind by Zanden McMullen in 32nd. Gus Schumacher and Walker Hall also finished close together in 49th and 51st. Luke Jager rounded out the Americans in 65th.
The Americans were somewhat hampered by poor ski speed today, at least in the women’s race, as Jessie Diggins candidly told media after her fifth-place finish.
The finish area quickly became riddled with collapsed and bent-over skiers, possibly due to the new snow that had slowed the course down. Speaking from experience, new snow can make one feel like they are skiing through molasses, so the racers were understandably tired. You can find The Diggins Collapse Index’s take on today’s finish here.
The altitude may also have played a role, as Jager remarked in comments to Nordic Insights: “The biggest feature of the course to me was the altitude!! It was so hard and made going over early just a permanent mistake for the whole race. I tried to ski as relaxed as possible but when the lactate comes there’s not a lot you can do.”
At almost 6,000 feet, Engadin is well above sea-level Anchorage where Jager lives and trains, which contributes to the fatigue one feels, especially when there are 20 kilometers for exhaustion to accrue.
Gus Schumacher told Nordic Insights how he likes to recover after an exhausting race: “I try to sleep a lot, even [if] I need help from some melatonin after a race. I like to do breathwork after races to relax my nervous system a bit. I try to stretch and do PT exercises still so my body, shoulders especially, keeps functioning well.”
Skiers will get a much-needed five-day break before the World Cup resumes on January 31st with a classic team sprint in Cogne, Italy. When asked about the high volume of racing, Schumacher said “I’ve been pretty proactive about the amount of racing I’m doing. I’ve chosen to skip a few races so I’m not doing 3 races every week.”
Some top racers may sit this one out, as they did with the last team event on Friday. As the team sprint does not count toward individual FIS or World Cup points, it is a race that skiers can choose to sit out without consequences to their standing. Start lists have yet to be released, though the Americans are unlikely to add or subtract many athletes from the crew that raced in Engadin this weekend.
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in years one and two of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year three of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter toAmerican cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, last season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
